Here is an argument I sometimes hear when an immigration issue is in the news:

You’re so sympathetic to “illegals,” but look at what they do to them in Japan and Korea. Such racist countries. Checkmate, Asian woman!

(Ok, that last sentence is made up, but you can almost hear them thinking that in their heads.)

I don’t live in Japan or Korea and never have. I’ve lived in the US my entire life. Even if I did, it doesn’t mean I would automatically agree with every law there. It’s safe to say the person making this argument doesn’t agree with every law in the US. This also tells me that the person likely sees Asian-Americans as foreigners, regardless of our situation.

And yes, there are a lot of racists in those countries. There are a lot of racists here. It doesn’t mean I agree with it. What’s it called when you assume I hold an opinion because other people of my same race or ethnicity do? ?

And trying to justify unfair actions in the US by bringing up laws in other countries is whataboutism. The same people making this logical fallacy are often ones that talk about being a proud American and how the US is the best. If we’re better, then we should be better and do better than the countries that are being compared.

My Two Cents on US Immigration Policy

I think that the laws ultimately need to be changed to make it easier for immigrants to come here legally. Most undocumented immigrants would like to come here the proper way, but the current laws are complex and unjust. Unless one comes from the “right” countries, has certain connections or ties to citizens, has high social or economic status, or has “special” work skills, it is near impossible.

Many simply lack these qualities because of where they were born, which is not something one can choose. There is so much talk about whether or not to be tough on undocumented immigrants and little talk about more realistic and reasonable pathways to legal residency and citizenship. Even if someone is xenophobic, they should realize that immigrants are coming here anyway, so we might as well make sensible laws.

The post Laws in Other Countries Don’t Justify US Immigration Policy appeared first on Very Cherry.

In 2009, I lost my good friend Bryan. Not only did he die at the young age of 27, he died by suicide. Not only was it a suicide, he jumped off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge – known as one of the scariest bridges in the country. It was one of many deaths of friends I’ve endured, but this one became a turning point in my life.

Several years prior, when I was 19, I became homeless. This occurred rather suddenly and without notice. After this happened, I stayed with my friend Mike Q (who died two years before Bryan), but it was only temporary, since Mike lived in his dad’s basement, and his dad was uncomfortable with some kid he didn’t know staying there for more than a few days. (I couldn’t blame him.) I was basically living in my car, while still going to work at a record store and finishing out my second semester at college. One afternoon, I ran into a friend on campus. He said he heard what I was going through and that I should IM his friend Bryan. I IM’d Bryan on a computer in the school library. He offered to let me stay with him until I could save up enough money to get my own place, no questions asked. I was incredibly grateful.

I didn’t know Bryan well at the time. We both went to the same school in 8^th grade, but we had no classes together. However, we were both “alternative” – meaning we dressed rock/punk/goth/raver/skater/grunge/metal/etc, so we knew of each other. When we were 18, we saw each other at shows of local bands in the Baltimore music scene and made small talk.

I wasn’t sure why Bryan would risk having someone he didn’t know well stay with him, but I accepted. Someone could ask why I would stay at the place of someone I hardly knew, but it seemed less of a risk to stay with an acquaintance than continue sleeping in my car.

Bryan and I grew very close. I’m a keyboardist and he’s a guitarist, so we would jam out together. We would talk about philosophy, art, music, and much more. I stayed with him for a few months, until I saved up enough money to live with roommates. We still stayed closely in touch for several years. We would have hours-long phone conversations and would often go to local music shows or dance clubs together. We knew everything going on in each other’s personal lives and the details of who we were dating and how it was going.

The last couple years of Bryan’s life, I didn’t speak to him or see him. He had moved and his phone number changed. I wasn’t sure what happened to him, but I figured I would bump into him again and we would hang out often again. This had happened a few times before, although the periods were much shorter, but this happens with friends sometimes. I didn’t think it to be a big deal.

Then I got the phone call that he had died. I was in shock when I found out he took his own life. In the coming days and weeks, I would talk to his other friends and they all said something along the lines of, “We all knew he was going to kill himself. We just didn’t think it would be so soon. How sad.” Why did they mean they all “knew”? Bryan had never mentioned being suicidal at any time. He never even mentioned that he had been previously suicidal. But he had told people he was less close with. I felt angry that he would tell mere acquaintances, but not one of his closest friends. Then I was mad at myself for being mad about that.

Although I had many friends who died at this point – some of whom were close friends – this one was much different. I felt deep pain with all of them, but there was this large weight on my chest. It felt different than anything I’d felt in my life, including severe anxiety and panic attacks. It was this dreadful feeling. I was having nightmares that I was swimming in the Chesapeake Bay, in the spot where Bryan had died. I saw the large waves next to the bridge. It was so vivid and realistic. Other nights, I dreamt I jumped off the bridge myself, and could feel the g-forces. I could not even sleep to escape my pain. My dreams were absolutely terrifying. I started drinking alone. I never previously had a drinking problem, but I was self medicating. I intentionally drank for the sole purpose of numbing pain.

I couldn’t make sense of what happened, so I did Google searches on why people choose jumping from a bridge as a method of suicide. I ended up watching “The Bridge,” which is a documentary on people who jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. It wasn’t the same bridge and it didn’t have Bryan, but I felt like maybe it would have some answers. It wasn’t an easy film to watch, but I’m glad that I did. I started feeling a little better.

But then there were the questions about life and death. I have been an atheist since I was about 12 years old, but there were other things I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure whether or not there was an afterlife or ghosts. I didn’t know if dead people were watching over us or helping us out in any way. These were questions I’d thought about a lot before, but never came to an opinion. But now it was bothering me immensely. There was no quick answer. Sure, I could just tell myself whatever I wanted, but I couldn’t fool myself. I needed to truly believe in whatever conclusion I came to. This wasn’t like Googling other questions. I couldn’t get a quick, simple answer.

Around this same time, an acquaintance kept recommending “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins to me. It took him quite a few times before I bothered to read it. After all, I was already an atheist and already knew religion was bunk. Why on Earth did I need to read it? I finally did and it changed my way of thinking. While much of what Dawkins pointed out were things I already considered, he articulated it in such a clear way that it helped me understand my own reasoning better. And he brought up other aspects of religion I hadn’t thought of before. Most importantly, it opened me up to his other work and other skeptical thinkers.

I watched his documentary “The Enemies of Reason,” which made me realize homeopathy was bunk. I started watching and reading other thinkers like Penn Jillette and James Randi. I revisited the work of the late Carl Sagan, whom I had watched as a child. I started to understand the process of skeptical thinking. I had a much better idea of how to spot false information. This was a life-changing experience. I began to realize there were scientific reasons for believing in a naturalistic worldview, which meant I no longer believed in the supernatural. This meant there were no ghosts, spirits, or afterlife.

I ended up mourning the loss of Bryan, Mike Q, and many others all over again. Before I thought I might see them again “on the other side”. Now that I no longer believed that, it really hit me that they were dead. I would never see them again. What had been would be it – forever. But that mourning didn’t last long, maybe only a day or two. While I hadn’t really believed in a literal Heaven or Hell for years, I had previously wondered where in the afterlife they had ended up. Not anymore. I didn’t worry whether or not they were suffering. And I knew that they were still around me, in a sense. The many memories we had and the thoughts we shared still affect me to this day. This is the closest thing we have for living beyond our deaths. The bigger and better the impact we make while we are alive, the longer our thoughts and actions will continue on after we die. This inspired me and invigorated me to make this life – this one life I get – to really count, because it’s my only shot. And besides, even if the truth didn’t make me feel better, it was still reality. That’s better than misbelief.

The immense pain from Bryan’s death led me to really reexamine my own thoughts. It wasn’t easy. I’m only human, so it’s not always fun at first to realize you are wrong on certain beliefs. But in the long run, it’s quite wonderful. I feel like I really turned this tragic situation into something positive. Obviously, I’m not glad he died, and I’d like to think I would have come to these conclusions at some point. But Bryan’s death was going to greatly affect me, whether I wanted it to or not. I’m glad it turned out to be positive.

This is why I can understand if Chester killed himself in part because of Chris Cornell. Had Bryan’s death happened at another point in my life, I might have taken my life as well. I have been suicidal countless times in the past. I eventually got treatment. I haven’t felt suicidal in years. But if I weren’t at that place in my life, and Bryan had died the way he did, I wouldn’t have handled it as well. If I had killed myself, it certainly wouldn’t be his fault. It wouldn’t be because I was “inspired” by Bryan to do it. It would be the immense pain of existing depression added in with the deep pain – that heavy feeling in my chest – and wanting it to end.

I can’t really say for sure why Chester killed himself. Maybe the date of his death was coincidental. Like Chris, Chester did not leave a suicide note, so there’s a lot we can only make educated guesses about. We do know they were close friends and he has mentioned that he was suicidal in the past. He has spoken about being sexually abused when he was a child by an older man. Since both Chester and Chris suffered from mental health issues, perhaps Chris was the only person Chester felt comfortable talking to about certain issues he was dealing with. I know that’s true for me, but I didn’t know Chester or Chris, and can only imagine.

Part of me also wonders if the life of a full-time band is a healthy environment for dealing with mental health issues. This is not to say that no one with mental health issues should tour, but that it might be a hindrance for some people at certain stages. The constant traveling and irregular hours can make it hard to get proper treatment. I don’t know what kind of treatment he got, if any, or if he had a doctor who was available by phone. There’s just a lot I don’t know. But it does make me wonder if my band had “made it” when I was younger, would I have ever taken the time to get the help that I needed? What I do know is that it usually isn’t just one cause or a simple explanation. It’s the perfect storm that makes it go from a thought to an action. Whatever that perfect storm was, it happened for Chester, and I am deeply sorry for him, his family, his friends, and his bandmates.

Many people believe suicide is always selfish. I disagree. While one could argue that there are selfish forms of suicide, such as a suicide bomber, they are extreme cases that aren’t as common. Many people who kill themselves believe the people around them would be better off without them. They are wrong, but mental health problems can make the most logical person believe the irrational.

Linkin Park’s music – especially the Hybrid Theory and Meteora albums – came out at a time when I really needed it. It has helped me and a lot of other people. Chester is dead and we will never see him again, but his work will continue to live on for years to come.

The post Introspection: My Pain From a Friend’s Suicide appeared first on Very Cherry.

WeHo Jesus does not approve of homophobia!

Trump Dress

The post Photos from LA Pride #ResistMarch 06.11.2017 appeared first on Very Cherry.

The rainbow areas show the route marchers will take and what streets will be closed tomorrow, June 11th. The L.A. Pride Parade is being replaced with a #ResistMarch – which I know is controversial and I understand the different sides on this matter. Regardless, I love that Google did this. The parade typically takes place in West Hollywood, but this year it starts with speakers in Hollywood and ends in WeHo.

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This promoted tweet showed up on my Twitter timeline today. It’s unsurprising to see misinformation about GMOs and chemicals on social media, but I am surprised and disappointed this is coming from Aetna, a health insurance company. While this image doesn’t explicitly state to avoid GMOs, the quotes around “Grown” suggest that GMO foods are bad. They are not. For organic, I’m not sure what “Grown without chemicals” means. Everything is made up of chemicals, including water and the foods themselves. Do they mean pesticides? Because organic does not mean pesticide-free. And GMOs reduce pesticide use in some cases. It’s also worth noting that Snopes has written that these codes shouldn’t be relied upon by consumers.

While Aetna’s tweet did get a lot of retweets and likes, the replies weren’t so supportive. 

The post Aetna Posts Anti-GMO Graphic on Twitter appeared first on Very Cherry.

Even NPR is guilty of a misleading headline, but it seems to have been updated now.

But is that what really happened? Let’s take a look at the interview.

What actually happened is that he was asked who his favorite current foreign leader is and he couldn’t think of anyone. He poked fun at himself and said he had an “Aleppo moment.” That’s hardly the same thing as being unable to name a current leader period. Some will then say, “Okay, you’re right. But he’s still an idiot for not being able to name a favorite leader.” But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s uneducated about other leaders, just that there’s none that he currently admires. From his point of view, that makes sense. He has a libertarian viewpoint, which means few, if any, current leaders would be great in his mind. A liberal might respond, “But I like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada! How can he not know about him?” Okay, that’s fine if you like Trudeau. Johnson may know who he is, but that doesn’t mean he admires him.

Johnson tweeted today that he still can’t name one he admires, affirming that there simply aren’t any that fit his views.

My point here isn’t to convince you to support Gary Johnson or agree with his answer. One can argue something else he actually said that they disagree with, but that isn’t what this is about. It’s about spreading false information and how we can prevent ourselves from doing this. I’ve seen skeptics – who’ve scolded others for believing things based on misleading headlines – do it themselves with this Johnson interview. Just because you dislike a candidate doesn’t mean the methods of fact checking and reading before you share suddenly don’t apply. I am not a Trump supporter, but I will correct people who make inaccurate claims about him. I wish people who dislike libertarian ideals would do the same.

It’s also disappointing that multiple news sites did this: News sources that many people would consider to be legitimate. It’s bad enough when BuzzFeed, InfoWars, or The Free Thought Project have misleading headlines, but most people expect more from NPR and The New York Times.

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This is an example of the horseshoe theory in effect. Instead of showing the linear left-right continuum that we’re most used to seeing, the horseshoe shows that the far left and far right are closer to each other in ideology than we may have realized. While the M&Ms meme was about dangerous men, and the Skittles analogy is about Syrian refugees, both use the same illogical thought process.

Donald Trump Jr.’s tweet has been widely discussed and criticized on news and social media for the past several days now. There is no doubt that many people who originally shared the M&Ms/men meme have seen the Skittles/Syrian refugees image with an official Trump/Pence logo on it. And most of them aren’t Trump supporters and they disagree with the message. There has to be some people who now realize they were wrong, whether they admit it to others or not.

If you’re one of them, I encourage you to come out and admit it. It’s OK! I’ve been wrong about stuff before. We all have. If you read my blog posts or follow me on social media, I make no secret about that. I share my learning experience and the reasons I believed what I did so that I can help others. And if it’s issues I’d spoken about publicly before, I want to make sure I correct that bad information, so I can let others know who saw it that it was incorrect.

It’s time to admit the poisoned M&Ms/men meme was wrong. You may want to weasel out of it by explaining that men aren’t a minority, so it’s different. But be honest with yourself. It’s still wrong, regardless of minority status, or lack thereof.  I won’t hold my breath, but it’d be awesome to witness people come out and say, “Hey, I messed up and this is why it happened.”

The post It’s Time to Admit the Men/Poisoned Candy Analogy Is Wrong appeared first on Very Cherry.

In order to explain where I was physically and mentally on September 11th, I must first explain what happened in the months prior. On May 13, 2001, I celebrated Mother’s Day with my mom and stepdad. Everyone was in a happy mood. I then went to work at Sam Goody. When I came home, my mother was infuriated over something trivial and kicked me out of the house. With no warning or preparation, I had hardly any money and no permanent shelter. I was living in my car and crashing at friends’ houses. I finished my second semester of college successfully and was then fortunate enough to end up staying with my friend Bryan for a few months until I could save up to live with roommates. Due to my circumstances, I had to drop out of school.

My job knew and was understanding of my situation and offered me a promotion as Assistant Manager, but I would have to transfer to another location. I was working in a Baltimore suburb and would begin my new position in Columbia, MD – about 45 minutes outside of DC. A friend – who was my old boss at a previous job – ended up needing a roommate in Columbia around this same time, so I moved in with him and his friend. We lived together for a few weeks before September 11th.

On the morning of September 11th, I made the short drive to work at Columbia Mall, to be there by 9am. As I parked my car at the mall, I took the adapter for my CD player out of my tape deck and the radio automatically came on. The station 99.1 WHFS was talking about a plane that had “crashed” into one of the World Trade Center buildings in New York, and they weren’t sure if it was intentional or an accident. I thought that it was odd and I hoped too many people weren’t hurt. I then turned off the radio and went to work.

September 11th was a Tuesday, which was the day of the week virtually all CDs were released back then. Jay-Z “The Blueprint,” P.O.D. “Satellite,” Ben Folds “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” Slayer “God Hates Us All,” Mariah Carey “Glitter,” and Dream Theater “Live Scenes from New York” were released that day, so my mind was on the people coming to pick up their reservations. I got the registers ready and opened the store at 10am. I was alone and no one else was scheduled to come in until the afternoon. This wasn’t unusual for a weekday during that time of year. I remember noticing that something was “off” with the customers that morning. It wasn’t a bad thing; they just seemed different. At one point, the credit card machine was not processing any transactions. A regular customer, who was normally demanding, was very somber when her credit card could not be processed. “That’s okay. There are more important things to worry about. I’ll pay cash.” The credit card machine would not be able to process any transactions for a while and no one was upset about this. I didn’t know at the time it was likely because the phone lines were tied up, since numerous people were trying to call their families.

After some time, the store phone rang. It was a coworker who was off that day. He seemed panicked and said, “Oh, thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you all morning but was unable to get through.” I asked him what was wrong and he’d asked if I heard about what happened in New York. I told him I knew about that plane that hit. He explained that another plane had hit the building beside it and a plane had hit the Pentagon. This was the information he knew at the time. It was at that moment that my heart sunk and I knew that the first plane hitting was no accident. His words were, “We are at war.” Because I was the only employee, and customers probably assumed I knew and didn’t tell me, I didn’t know what happened for hours. There was no TV playing the news at my job. There were no smartphones for the instant news access we have today. I don’t think “social media” was even a term back then. My coworker called every few minutes to give me further updates. This might sound like it would be obnoxious or stress-inducing, but I was grateful. I didn’t feel alone and I wanted to know what was happening.

But there was a lot of disinformation in the minutes and hours after the attacks. This is common in general with breaking news stories. My coworker told me that there were car bombs in and near DC. He’d also heard that some shopping centers in the DC suburbs were on fire, possibly bombed. Keep in mind that I was only 30 miles away from DC and in a shopping center myself, so this was unnerving. Thankfully, these turned out to be false and were based on inaccurate eyewitness reports, among other things. As someone who is now a skeptic, and recalling this incident and countless other big news stories, I’ve made sure to remember that facts right after a major news event might not come out until later. The information first reported might be false – usually unintentionally, but false nonetheless. My coworker was only trying to help me by warning me with what he had heard had happened, and had only the best of intentions, so I hold no ill feelings toward him for this.

During sometime in the early afternoon, a man was walking fast in the hallway of the mall and was yelling “We are closing! Close the stores!” Columbia Mall had recently given a letter to the stores of what the procedures were for early closings, and it certainly wasn’t that someone would just yell down the hallway to close. I wasn’t sure if the mall was really closed or if it was some random man playing a prank. There was no answer when I called the main office. The other stores were closing, so I figured I might as well do the same. I called the manager of Suncoast store in the same mall, as they were the same company as Sam Goody/Musicland. Since we were both working alone and couldn’t have another employee verify the register cash amounts, we signed off on each other’s paperwork, so that we were still doing the closing procedures as properly as possible. Yes, even during 9/11 I had to make sure my ass wasn’t getting fired. As I walked out of the mall, I saw paper signs taped to the entrance doors that said the mall was closed so that everyone could be with their loved ones.

When I arrived at my apartment, my roommates weren’t there. I turned on the TV and the footage of the attacks was playing. This was maybe about 2pm or 3pm in the afternoon, hours after most Americans had already seen it, but I was viewing it for the first time. The way I had pictured it was much different from what it actually looked like. My heart sunk again. It was like I was re-learning about this. It makes me wonder about other events in history that weren’t recorded by a camera and how much more devastating we’d think they were if we could see that, versus how we visualize the events in our minds.

My roommate had arrived home a bit later. It was so comforting to see him and actually talk about what happened with someone in person. That evening, I remember going online on Yahoo Groups for local Maryland bands, to make sure everyone was OK. After a while, I wanted a small escape from what had happened, so I turned on MTV, but even they were playing footage of the attacks. I became exhausted just from the mental and emotional effects that the events had caused, but then I felt guilty. The victims’ families couldn’t just turn off the TV. This was their lives now.

The next day at work, everyone was talking about what happened and it felt good to see each other and share our thoughts. Some customers had shown up in patriotic attire. I went across the hall to Claire’s to buy some red, white, and blue bangle bracelets. It may seem silly, and I’m not normally an overtly patriotic person, but it felt good to wear the colors and to see others do the same. We had all felt so helpless and powerless and this was a small way of relieving that, and we felt united. Corporate sent us a memo saying that we had to take the Dream Theater album “Live Scenes From New York” off the shelves and had to immediately send it back to headquarters. We were not to sell it to any customers. The cover art depicted New York City on fire. This was a coincidence, but I understand why the band decided to change the cover art.

Back in 2001, Baltimore and DC had fantastic local music scenes. (I’m not saying they don’t now, but I know they did in 2001 because I was a part of it.) I went to local shows at least twice a week in those days and was performing as a solo artist. There were shows scheduled for the Friday and Saturday after 9/11 that were expected to have a large attendance, and I had planned to attend. When the end of the week rolled around, some of the band members posted in Yahoo Groups that they weren’t sure if they should still play. They felt silly putting on a show when so much more important stuff was happening in the world and other people were suffering. Many people had something similar to survivor guilt. But we expressed that we needed them to still perform because – as trite as it sounds now – we didn’t want the terrorists to win. If events were canceled and we changed our way of life, then they would have won. We also found great comfort in music and needed to see our friends. The band members agreed and later said their sets were almost therapeutic for them to play.

The Monday after 9/11, I performed a solo set in Baltimore and that was a great outlet for me. And I’m grateful that I had these shows and the music community, as well as my roommates and coworkers. During this whole time, I was not on speaking terms with my mother. I didn’t have a cell phone back then. She didn’t know that I’d been transferred to a different work location. This was the first very emotional thing I had to endure without my family. But I was lucky to have wonderful people around me and I knew that I could have support and a connection with people who weren’t related to me. While I felt scared after 9/11, I also felt reassured that I’d be okay on my own.

As the weeks went on, I started thinking about how easy it is to die. I kept it to myself at first until my friends started expressing they felt this way. I was glad I wasn’t the only one. We started talking about how you could just trip the wrong way or have an accident in the bathtub and die. A driver could be careless and kill you by accident. Life seemed much more fragile right after 9/11. This eventually faded but I didn’t know it would at the time.

I lived somewhat close to BWI Airport, so my roommates and I could hear planes taking off and getting ready to land. It was such a common occurrence that we hardly noticed it before the terrorist attacks. When the airports were open for the first time after 9/11, I couldn’t get a good night’s sleep. Every time a plane took off or landed, I would wake up. This never happened before. I wasn’t trying to wake up; my body automatically did it. It would be weeks before I could sleep the whole night through.

As time went on, the fears faded and life went back to normal – sort of. Since then, our rights and our privacy have diminished. Conspiracy theorists have spread their misinformation that the September 11th attacks were an “inside job” of the US government. We’ve fought some unnecessary wars. On the plus side, other things changed for the better and I’m on great terms with my mother. Our relationship is the strongest it’s ever been. It took some time, but I was eventually able to go back to college.

When I was in high school, my classmates and I thought that future generations would ask us where we were on New Year’s Eve 1999 into 2000. We had no idea back then that it will probably be more likely that we’ll be asked about September 11th, 2001. I remember the details of that day much more than NYE 1999.

The post My September 11th Story appeared first on Very Cherry.

After seeing a few of these videos show up in my Facebook news feed, I was curious about his background. My guess was that he was a comedian and/or a skeptic – Maybe not be an all-around skeptic but at least skeptical of alternative medicine and spirituality. But when I went to his Facebook page, I saw videos about emotional healing and awakening. These did not seem to be funny or satirical, but I wondered if he was maybe doing deadpan. I scrolled down his page some more and saw posts about spiritual retreats he was leading. I clicked on a link and saw that this was real and googled some of the other spiritual leaders listed. They were all promoting woo woo.

I then went to his Inner Awakenings website, and his About Me says:

JP Sears is an emotional healing coach, international teacher, world traveler, and curious student of life.  His work empowers people to live more meaningful lives.  JP presents classes, workshops, online seminars, and leads retreats at numerous locations around the world on inner healing and growth.  He is also very active on his YouTube channel AwakenWithJP, where he encourages healing and growth through his entertainingly informative and inspiring videos.

JP served as a faculty member for the C.H.E.K Institute from 2006 to 2013.  JP holds certification as a Holistic Coach Advanced Practitioner through the Holistic Coaching Institute in Columbus, OH.

“C.H.E.K Institute” (which I had to google) and “Holistic coaching” were what made me realize that he really does believe in pseudoscience. Then I clicked the link to his YouTube channel and saw that most of his videos are serious and promoting woo, not ridiculing it. He often differentiates the satirical videos from the seriously spiritual ones by putting “(Funny)” in the title.

The bottom of his About Me page has this video, which explains what his main gig is and has testimonials from clients.

While I don’t see anything over-the-top wrong here, I do have concerns about people seeing a holistic coach and not a mental health professional trained at an accredited science-based medical school. He doesn’t seem to be psychic or palm reader bad – at least from what’s revealed in the testimonials – but it definitely paints JP Sears in a much different light than what my impression was of him from his funny videos.

I thought his soothing, ASMR-inducing voice and pleasant facial expressions were a fantastic impression of an alt med coach. But the reason he’s so good at it in his funny videos is because that’s what he does as his main job!

Here’s one that’s especially soothing to me:

Much of what he’s saying is advice I read when I was in elementary school and thought I had psychic dreams, so I read books about it. Basically, if you are more into and aware of your dreams, the more likely you are to remember them. The sooner you record the dream, the more likely you are to remember what happened in it (or what you think happened anyway). Not really mind-blowing information here. But the way he speaks made me stare at him straight in the eye and pay attention, as though he were physically in the same room and speaking specifically to me, and as though he were saying fascinating things. I think this is a big part of the appeal of certain people who spread hogwash and of con artists – Not that I have reason to believe JP Sears is intentionally deceiving people, but it’s interesting to ponder how much of what we are willing to believe is based on the manner in which people present themselves.

Seeing all this made me realize my impression of him was wrong, but it didn’t make me dismiss him altogether. Although I was disappointed for a brief moment, it didn’t make me dislike the satirical videos I’d seen. I think it’s great that he can poke fun at his own community. It’s nice that, although he’s wrong on things, he doesn’t seem to have taken it to such an extreme. His criticisms of health fads may convince people who may never listen to skeptics or doctors. They may see JP as someone who “gets it” and not some Big Pharma dude and are more willing to see what he’s saying.

I do wish he wasn’t a holistic coach. I wish they didn’t exist at all and that people used evidence-based medicine from licensed doctors. So he doesn’t get a free pass on this. But I can tell from his videos that he gets what the alt medders he’s criticizing believe and that’s why he’s so good at satirizing it. Many skeptics I know are good at explaining why this or that alt med treatment is bunk, but many aren’t good at explaining what the belief is and why people come to their conclusions. So when they get into a conversation with a believer, it only makes them believe even more because they can easily dismiss the skeptic as someone who doesn’t get it in the first place. I know that’s what I did when I believed in alt med.

But then I wonder if I’m being inconsistent. I don’t believe in sharing any posts from David Wolfe. Part of how he’s gotten so popular on Facebook is that people see mostly harmless memes from his page with vague positive messages or nice videos of nature. People share it and some decide to follow him. But they then end up seeing his extreme posts about GMO conspiracy theories, how your face is a map to internal body issues, and other harmful misinformation that are links to his website. Once they click that link, they start seeing other junk that his site promotes.

While it’s possible some people will see JP Sears’ satirical videos, start following, and then start becoming a believer in his spiritual teachings, I don’t think he’s as bad as David Wolfe saying “Chocolate is an octave of sun energy” or “The reason why the oceans are salty is that’s what’s needed to hold the water onto the Earth”. It’s possible he does teach things to that extreme but I haven’t seen it or it’s things done in private sessions or retreats. However, I think those who follow him for making fun of woo woo are less likely to then become a client of his. But there may be more people willing to believe David Wolfe’s junk posts after seeing his cute animal videos.

And he seems like a cool guy. If he’s able to criticize what I assume is his own clique, he’s probably fun to hang out with and a pleasant person, albeit with some misguided beliefs. Someone like David Wolfe seems like an arrogant douche. But maybe I’m wrong. My first impression of JP was wrong, afterall. But I’d hang out with JP. I doubt I would with David.

I’m willing to change my mind on this. Do you think it’s OK to be a fan of and share JP’s satirical videos, even if you disagree with his holistic coaching? Are his beliefs really not that extreme compared to Food Babe or David Wolfe, or am I being too easy on him? Is this really not a big deal either way? I’d love to read your comments on this.

The post The Curious Case of JP Sears appeared first on Very Cherry.

It’s funny. Styles that are common now will be looked back upon as silly. This applies to all of us, not just the bearded hipsters. Looking back at photos of myself from the ’90s and even the decade of the 2000s, I see that clothing and hairstyles have changed a lot. My chokers and JNCO jeans look silly to the teens of now.

Even things that aren’t currently considered “out there” will be looked back upon as outdated. Wearing relaxed fit jeans with white sneakers was a “safe” and “normal” look that people of a wide age range wore during the early-to-mid ’90s, but it seems so out of style now that we watch sitcom reruns from 2 decades ago. Eyeglass frames that were usual in the ’90s look odd to us now. I wear bronzer now and it’s been in style since around the late ’90s. We think it looks a lot better than the red and pink blushes of the past, but someday a younger generation will see photos of me with my bronzer and think, “Wow, that’s ridiculous”.

So let’s not just laugh at others. Let’s laugh at ourselves. Here are some other things that don’t seem too wild now, but may someday be looked back upon differently:

We all look ridiculous to the future, so dress how you see fit.

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